'800 press-ups a day' - Glenn Phillips reveals secret behind his power-hitting

Glenn Phillips, who was brought in by Rajasthan Royals for the second half of IPL 2021, could not make a great impact in his debut season, as he managed only 26 runs from three matches. He is a part of the New Zealand squad for the T20 World Cup in UAE and Oman which begins on October 17.

Phillips has already featured in Vitality T20 Blast, Caribbean Premier League, IPL and The Hundred. In The Hundred, he finished the third-highest six-hitter behind Liam Livingstone (27) and Moeen Ali (15) with 12 sixes in the tournament. The 24-year-old has so far hit 89 sixes in T20 this year, and 220 in all T20 cricket.

Speaking on his recent exploits, Philips stated that his workout at the gym has helped him a lot in six-hitting. He further added that he always tries to understand his strength in order to hit sixes against the opposition bowlers.

"Being in the gym has had a lot to do with it [six-hitting]. I've definitely put on some weight and started throwing a bit more tin around,"  Phillips said during a virtual media interaction. "So when it came to batting in the middle, if I did need to take it deeper, I could, but I always knew that I could catch-up and clear the rope if I had to. I think understanding what my strong shots are to be able to hit those sixes allows me to keep a cool head and play the right balls and hit them for six, as opposed to just trying to hit everything for six.

"I think it's a combination of working hard in the gym as well as understanding my game and what my strengths are and understanding the line and length that I'm looking for in order to be able to hit the maximum. Liam is an incredible ball-striker, so he's always going to be a tough one to keep off my heels and with the World Cup coming up and a couple of matches left in the year still it's going to be a tough chase to see who finishes on top there."

Philips has been a part of several T20 leagues around the world, and when asked about his quarantine days, the wicketkeeper-batsman stated that he spends his isolation period by involving in rigorous exercise. 

"Especially when I'm quarantined and alone and there's not much to do, I try to do as much exercise as possible, but at the moment [in the New Zealand bubble] I've got my partner here, so we enjoy as much time together as possible before she ends up leaving. I think as soon as she's gone again, it'll be exercising 24/7," he said.

"At one stage I was sort of doing 800 [press-ups] a day over three sets. I'd do a set of 300, then 300, and 200. And on an average day, I'd normally end up with about 500. So, the 300 and 200 set - they all depend upon what the day was and depending on other workouts I was doing - sometimes cardio, sometimes it'd be strength-based, but those are definitely the ones that made the biggest difference to when I got back home where my numbers on things like the bench press and bench pull went skyrocketing went from doing just body-weight stuff."